Tigers

This is a little stream Kirk and I fished yesterday. I have written many a post involving this stream, it's my home water. The stream is home to both wild brook and brown trout and in some years the rare wild tiger trout. The tiger is a cross between the brook and brown. At spawning time there's a little fooling around and the result is the tiger. The tiger is sterile and cannot reproduce hence the rarity. Tigers are a extremely aggressive trout. They strike the fly like no other fish and battle beyond belief.

What brought me to do this post is that yesterday while fishing this stream Kirk hooked what may have been a wild tiger. I did not see the entire battle but saw enough to think it was not an average brookie. Unfortunately Kirk was unable to gain control of the fish and it slipped the hook.

Now what I can show you is this tiger I caught in this stream back in December of 2011.

And in May of 2012 in the same stream I caught this tiger. He had moved much further upstream and had grown considerably..I think it's the same tiger.

The stream I have been talking about sends it's waters to another small stream, it to has a combination of brook and brown trout. These are all wild fish, there's no stocking in either stream. In the outback section of the stream while my streamer drifted near the undercut bank I felt the vicious take of a trout. I battled this fish for some time. I saw him roll and thought I had a beautiful brown. When the fish finally gave in and drifted along the bank I could not believe I had taken another tiger.

The normal vermiculations of a male brook trout seem to be enlarged and contorted into stripes (hence the "tiger" moniker), swirls, spots, and rings. Every one that I've seen also has a greenish cast, which lets you know that there is something different on the end of your line long before the fish is in hand.